Thursday, September 21, 2017

Shining a light on ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE (EMP)

What is the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)?

When a nuclear bomb is detonated 400 km in the air
over a populated area, gamma rays collide with electrons and ‘other stuff’
creating an energy surge that can with no warning and no direct harm to living
creatures seriously damage or destroy so much of continental North America’s
electrical infrastructure that life as we know it would come to a complete stop
for months.

In The National Post, Barbara Kay, (on September 20
2017) writes:

And EMP attack could put the majority of transformers
across the country out of commission,
which means rerouting from working transformers as we normally do in not
possible….replacement time might be up to 33 months, according to an expert,
Anthony Furey in his book, Pulse Attack,
The real story behind the secret weapon that can destroy North America.

And yet, while politicians of all stripes in both the
United States and Canada refuse to talk about EMP, Furey, through Ms Kay,
estimates that a few hundred million dollars in metal Farrady cages (like
tinfoil hats) over our utilities systems could preclude most potential
destruction from EMP. Yet nothing is being done either to discuss the issue or
to take steps to ameliorate any potential damage.

Naturally when first reading Ms Kay’s report, like
anyone living under a rock for the last three quarters of a century, I was
shocked, appalled and unnerved. I then passed the piece along to others who
shared my shock. We have been given glimpses of the deep dark internet, that
segment of the internet designed an implemented by the Pentagon’s sci-fi
exhibitionists, who then admitted they had lost control of their own monster.
We know of the preliminary glimpses of how the scientists envision the impact
of rising global temperatures and cities around the world (2/3 of which are les
than one meter above sea level) are discussing precautionary steps they might
take to ward off the most serious impact. Weaponry now reduces military combat
to an imitation of computer games controlled by operators thousands of miles
from the combat theatre. We know that facial recognition on our “smart” phones
is already here along with talking/responding/answering voice machines that
have replaced most of what previously passed as research. Artificial
intelligence and artificial environments are threatening to imitate the human
imagination.

We also know that the speed of technological/digital
innovation has so far outstripped legislation that would assure some measure of
privacy and personal security that, like the income inequality gap, it is
unlikely to be closed. Rogue states are adamantly pursuing nuclear weapon
capability, as no doubt are all the Islamic terrorist networks. And digital
platforms just yesterday were openly tasked with a two-hour deadline to remove
all incendiary material from their websites by British Prime Minister Theresa
May speaking at the General Assembly of the United Nations.

And now this, EMP, as a new alphabet icon, has blurted
onto our radar screens to be mixed into the contemporary cultural, military,
political, ideological and survival stew.

Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-four, Star Wars, and
now comes the next iteration of danger…

·in
a world barely able to speak civilly to one another,

·in
a world in which thousands, if not millions of decent people have withdrawn
from offering their names for public office and left the field to ‘fringe’
leaders whose empty ego craves attention in a narcissistic binge so far out of
control that the gap between technology and limiting legislation looks like a
sliver by comparison and

·in
a world addicted to measuring all success by dollars and the things only
dollars can buy.

Although this rant evokes George Constanza’s pitiful
rants, in Seinfeld, about how humanity is growing insensitive to his pleading
need for a public telephone, there is a kind of desperation in the perception
of a confluence of “storm surges” of the
political/techno/military/fiscal/ego/pharma (think opiod and new drugs without
clinical trials) variety that renders one a little agast. Meanwhile, markets
actually quick-march into the stratosphere, housing prices soar in large urban
areas, mammoths like Amazon generate a
frenzied competition for a second city location in North America (while their
workers cry foul at their treatment by the company and the house prices in
Seattle (Amazon #1) rise significantly and unemployment falls….and all the
while, our political leaders bury their heads in the sands of flooded beaches,
resort main streets and storm-torn islands and earthquake ripped sites like
Mexico.

Galloping forces in divergent directions, without the
appearance of strong, collaborative, mature and trust-worthy ship-of-state
captains evoke wrecks like the Costa Concordia, whose captain was talking to
his lover while his ship ran aground on sea shoals back in 2012 off Tuscany. Of
course, it is an overly simplistic comparison, but an analogous and riveting
one.

Ask yourself what is happening to the previously
trusted, responsible and visionary compendium of historic decisions made by
leaders whose competence and whose stability were the ballast when geopolitical
seas rolled with war, and the threats of war and the ensuing need and demand
for peace.

Institutions like NATO, the U,N., and the E.U. and the
International Court at the Hague….these institutions were birthed from the
ashes of the mid-twentieth century conflagration. Do we have to endure another
(only this time sterile) EMP before we, collectively and individually) awaken
to take responsibility for the dangers and the threats that now confront a
world population fully exposed to both the opportunities of new connections and
collaborations and the threats to which we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear.

The marketplace of ideas can no longer exclude topics
like the EMP that the politicians consider too frightening for their voters to
embrace. Little do they know that their careers will increasingly depend, not
on their management of the information flow, but on the courage and integrity of
their willingness to deal honestly and openly with such lethal threats.

It is the gap between what the politician considers
“acceptable” as “politically correct” and the public’s intelligent and
conscious awareness of their denials and avoidances of responsibilities
(through a myriad of distractions) that could impale us on our own petard.